


Trust and Conversation

by MamzelleCombeferre



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 21:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14577864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamzelleCombeferre/pseuds/MamzelleCombeferre
Summary: After the events in the Gentleman's tunnels and after the Victory Pit battle is done, Fjord and Jester have a much needed conversation at the end of a long and tiring week.





	Trust and Conversation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrincessAmericaChavez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessAmericaChavez/gifts).



> Written for a reverse prompt challenge on tumblr! I haven't written anything in full in forever, and while I'm a little rusty for sure, man this felt good to do! Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it!

Night falls on the city of Zadash, and all comes to rest as much as it can with the Harvest Festival still dazzling around it. Two people sit up at a corner table of the Song and Supper Inn though, a seemingly odd pair of half orc man and blue tiefling woman. Their companions long gone to bed, they continue to drink, one with a glass of something that looks rich and strong and the other with a large glass of milk. Both drinks sit untouched as the girl doodles absently in her sketchbook and the boy worries at his lower lip, making little flicking motions with his thumb. 

Sighing, she puts her pen down and reaches up a hand to still his. “You’re picking at your teeth again Fjord.” 

She’s obviously tired, and maybe she doesn’t mean to sound harsh, but a flash of annoyance burns hot and fast in his chest anyways, not long enough to act on, but enough to feel bad about it. She had taken a beating lately, survived near death three times in less than a week. If anyone had the right to be short with people it was her. 

So instead of snapping, he coughs lightly into a balled up hand and says, “Sorry Jester,” then with a steady glance, “You feeling alright?”

Her shoulders tense a little bit, but loosen again as she reaches the same hand out to clasp his. “I am fine Fjord, just a little tired is all.” She tries to smile, but it doesn’t fully reach her eyes, and Fjord doesn’t press. Fatigue is written all over, from the ragged edge of her sleeve where the hem had come loose, to the slump of her upper body, like the dark blue bruised bags under her eyes were actually weighing her down. He leans back a little, not letting go of her hand. There are things he doesn’t want to talk about tonight either. The least he can do is allow her some privacy if that’s what she wished. 

They sit in silence for awhile, drinking and doodling, lost in thought. The hand that Jester isn’t holding twitches towards his mouth, and though he does his best to override the impulse he fails. He gets one more scratch in before the girl tugs at his other hand. 

He sighs now, placing the other offending hand on the table where she can see it. “Sorry Jes, it’s a nervous habit.” 

She looks up now from where she was staring into her glass of milk like it contained the answers to all the world’s problems. Her eye’s are soft, and a ghost of a smirk crosses her face. “Do I make you nervous Fjord?” She let’s go of his hand and starts fidgeting with the loose hem of her sleeve, and he finds he misses the warmth already.

He cannot answer fast enough, would hate for her to think that he thinks anything less than the world of her. “No! No Jes, not at all.” The dark green blush he feels creep up the back of his neck says yes though, maybe a little. “I feel more comfortable with you then I’ve felt with anyone in a long time.” 

“Why are you nervous then?” Her head cocks to the side like a curious child, but Fjord knows perhaps better than anyone that she is not a child, not even close. Unlike the others, she’ll notice if he’s lying and when it is only the two of them she will not let it pass. 

The pen and sketchbook lay long forgotten. If he tells her the truth he runs the risk of driving people further away than he’s already trying to hold them. If he doesn’t, then he runs the risk of driving them away altogether. 

He decides she isn’t worth the risk of the latter. 

He breathes deeply, rubbing a hand along where his head and neck meet. “I um, I had another one of those dreams the other night,” He starts, and to his surprise she jumps right in with-

“That is why you had blood on your mouth, right? You didn’t bite your lip.” 

Her gaze is piercing, like the needles he remembers seeing healers use in some of the naturalist shops by the docks. In the right pressure points, they could heal rather than cause pain, but in the wrong spots that same pain could be intensified. 

If it was good or bad he had not decided yet. He looks down at the table, the blush turning sheepish, burning across his ears now too. “No, I didn’t.” 

She tenses up again, and her eyes flash with proper anger now. “Fjord-” her voice more intense than he had ever heard “-You cannot keep hiding these things from us.” And the way she says that makes it sound like me. You cannot keep hiding these things from me. 

And she’s right. Someone has to know in case something bad happens. This pact he’s made, he doesn’t know the thick and thin of it. It is something made both with and without his consent though it makes very little sense to explain it that way. He has to try though, so he presses on. He starts at the beginning, explains that first dream on the road to Alfield, how he woke up in water, even as he was asleep. How it didn’t feel like a dream, but it didn’t feel like living either. Like the empty space between death and something else. He describes the large staring eye, the resounding hammering words, and the way his lungs still held real water even as his dream melted away. 

He describes the second dream, the confusion, but also the weird sense of calm. How this time the entity focused on the word consume. How he swallowed the sword and felt the blood cascading inside him, how even though he was so afraid he also felt strangely, disgustingly satisfied with the way his sword took new shape. How some of that blood followed him out of the dream like the water had before. 

He does not describe the storm that wracked his ship, how he fell in the water and for a long while thought he was going to die down there- that he had died down there. Something had to be kept for later. Somethings were still just for him.

Throughout all this she keeps eye contact, even as he cannot help but look down and around and anywhere but at her sad, inquisitive eyes. When he is done he fiddles with his nails, finally looking up to meet her gaze. 

She says, voice so quiet it almost isn’t heard, even in the deep quietness of the inn’s bottom floor. “Are you scared?” 

And his shoulders slump, like he was letting go of a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Yeah, of course I’m scared.” His voice cracks on the end, and he snaps his mouth shut like a dam. 

She nods understandingly, and even though she looks so tired and in need of saving herself she says, with the kind of conviction she usually reserves for talks of the Traveler, “Then we’ll do everything we can to help.” 

He hasn’t been a praying man for a long time, but perhaps her conviction could be enough for the both of them. He can only hope.


End file.
